Curiosity Killed The Cat
by Flame'Alchemist-sensei
Summary: When Spock starts receiving strange telepathic signals from the planet Chasuus, Kirk and a landing party beam down to investigate. Upon reaching the planet however, they find it to be inhabited by... kittens?   Slight spirk, mild language. Crack w/ plot.
1. Mouse Trap

**Fandom: **Star Trek: 2009! There may be some TOS references thrown in though...

**Time:** Uh, Stardate 2938.02. I just sorta made that number up, sorry if it doesn't comply with canon times and such. Post Nero-incident, well into the Enterprise's normal course of events.

**Pairing:**Spirk to come in later chapters!

**Characters: **Capt. Kirk, Spock, Chekov, Scotty, Bones, and Uhura make appearances, and Ensigns Thile and Wilson. That's Chris Thile.

**Rating:** PG-13/T to be safe. Some mild language in later chapters, along with possible Spirky stufff.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the characters from Star Trek 09, and those rights go to the lucky people who do. I also don't own Chris Thile, sadly, he owns himself. The writing and situations are all mine though!

**Enjoy!**

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><p>Captains log, Stardate 2938.02:<p>

_The USS Enterprise is currently in orbit around the planet known as Chasuus. Upon first inspection, it appeared to be completely normal, except for the absence of any radio transmissions, or transmissions of any kind. However, upon attaining orbit, First Officer Spock began receiving telepathic signals of an abnormal nature. The rest of the crew, even those with high psi ratings, remain unaffected. I have decided to beam down a landing party to explore the planet, both for the aforementioned reasons and because the Enterprise s engines are not in peak condition after our last engagement with Klingon forces. Hopefully, there will be some material on the planet or a civilisation advanced enough to trade with so that we can gather essential supplies. Kirk out._

Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise looked around the bridge. All of the usual command crew were at their stations, performing the typical day-to-day duties required of them, except for Spock. He had been ordered to report to Dr. McCoy for full neurological scans, however it was much more likely that he was attempting meditation in his quarters, and avoiding the incessant doctor at all costs.

"Uhura, anything from the planet?"

"No sir, nothing. I ve checked for transmissions of any kind, in any language, on any channel, subspace or otherwise. But there isn't a word."

"Alrighty.", Kirk spoke to the bridge at large, "Partly because of the need for supplies for the engine rooms and mainly to placate Mr. Scott, I'm sending down a party to investigate. The landing party will consist of myself, Mr. Spock, and whoever the first two personnel on the duty roster are."

"That's Ensigns Wilson and Thile, sir.", said Uhura, bringing up their information on her computer.

"Right. Tell them to meet us in the transporter room in ten minutes, lieutenant, thank you."

"Keptin, request to join ze landing party."

"Umm... Might I ask why, Mr. Chekov?"

"Because Keptin, it has been too long since I ve seen fresh air and skies. And since shore leave is still a vay off, I would like to request attendance in thees mission."

"Can you see fresh air, Mister Chekov?", Kirk asked, chuckling to himself. The young Russian Ensign was sometimes, for lack of a better word, simply adorable. Everyone thought so. "Why not? You can come with us, meet me in the transporter room with the other men in ten minutes." And then he strode out of the room and into the turbolift without another word.

"Why'd you really want to go, Chekov?", Sulu leaned towards the young Russian with an air of astounded curiosity.

"Vell, you guys alvays go on thees missions and I haff never been on one. And you alvays come back vith crazy stories and such. I vant to see vhat it is all about."

Sulu stifled a snort. "It's mainly running away from murderous aliens, getting lost or stranded on hostile planets, and generally trying not to get yourself killed." On the few missions he had been a part of, Sulu had quickly learned that there was plenty of bad in the universe to go with all the good. And, for some odd reason, beaming down to an unknown planet was usually followed by an encounter with the bad. He had no desire whatsoever to be part of a landing party ever again, unless in involved a peaceful race with lots of pretty women and copious amounts of brandy. But, knowing the fixes the Enterprise crew seemed to get themselves into, the women would probably be evil and the alcohol poisoned. Or something to that effect.

"Vell," stated Chekov, "I vant to see for myself. And this is a simple mission, eet should be fun." Inwardly, Sulu sighed. There was no such thing as a simple mission.

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><p>"Sickbay." Kirk said as he stepped into the turbolift. Spock probably wasn't there, knowing his tendency of avoiding Bones at all costs, but it Kirk wanted Bones medical opinion on his First Officer before they left for the planet. As the turbolift shuddered to a stop, he stepped out of the lift and nodded at Nurse Chapel, asking, "Where's McCoy?".<p>

"He's in his office. Feel free to go on in."

Kirk burst into his CMO s office only to find Bones sleeping soundly in his desk chair, which was leaning back at a precarious angle. Kirk took a step forward, reaching out a single finger towards Bones forehead. Holding his breath with excitement, Kirk gave the man a hard poke.

Bones let out a yelp of surprise and his eyes went wide before toppling backwards into the wall behind him. Struggling to right himself, he pointed menacingly at Kirk.

"You! You just wait until I get my hands on you, I m gonna hypo you into next week!"

"Bones, please...", but Kirk, nearly doubled-over laughing, could barley speak. Still grumbling about hyposprays and revenge, Bones finally managed to stand up and face his red-faced assailant.

"I didn't mean to!" Kirk said, still laughing despite McCoy s menacing glare. "I swear!"

"Like hell you didn't mean to," growled Bones, displeasure apparent in his face, "Did you have a reason for coming up here, other than harassing me?"

"Well Bones, as fun as harassing you is- don't hit me!- I was wondering what you think about Spock?"

"You mean the telepathic signals he's been getting? It'd be a lot easier for me to give you a medical diagnosis if he'd get his Vulcan ass up to sickbay for a real examination! He's been avoiding me all day! But based on what you told me, I would venture to say that whatever's sending those signals has a pretty strong grip on their telepathic powers. To affect Spock like that..."

"I know," said Kirk, "It's sorta freaking me out, to be honest."

"Jim, I don't think you should take him to the planet. If the thing sending those signals can affect him that much at this distance, imagine what it d do to him at a closer range!"

"I know Bones, but I need him. Just cross your fingers for him, okay? See you when we get back."

Bones just nodded and sighed as Kirk walked out the door with a sassy wave.

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><p>In the transporter room, the two ensigns and Chekov were waiting.<p>

"Hey, you re the navigator, right?" said the taller one with crazy hair.

"Pavel Chekov, zat's me." he replied, "You are?"

"Ensign Thile. Chris, if ya like." he pointed a thumb to the other redshirt, "This guy's Wilson. He doesn't talk much."

"Nice zu meet you both." Chekov grinned.

"Okay men, you ready to go?" Kirk strode into the room, Spock trailing behind him. There was a general murmur of affirmation as the group arranged themselves on the transporter pads.

"Um, these, uh, telepathic signals, they can't screw with the transporter, can they?" Thile asked, looking worriedly from Spock's paler-than-normal face to Scotty, who was manning the transporter controls.

"That, Ensign, is highly unlikely." said Spock from behind Kirk, "Telepathy can rarely interfere with physical technology."

"And I'm not seeing a wee bit of fluctuation in the instruments, so you lads should be ready to go. Have a nice trip, and bring me engines back some supplies, aye? Scotty grinned as he operated the controls. The room briefly flooded with light and he could just make out the men's rapidly dissolving figures before they were gone entirely.

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><p>AN: Hello everyone! So, this is a crazy crack-y idea my brother and I came up with, and somewhere along the line, it actually got a plot and stuff. But expect more crack, silliness, [dead redshirts? maybe maybee] and, dare I say it, KITTENS next chapter.<p>

The redshirts are sweet as can be, and I will try my hardest not to kill them off. No promises though!

Do you like Chekov's accent? He is so adorably fun to write!

I don't know when my next update will be, I've already sorta started the next chapter, and I hope it'll be up before Christmas! However, I'll be gone the week after that, so we'll see. I'll try to update as soon as possible though!

~Review, Kittens, and Poor, poor redshirt Thile,  
>Flame`Alchemist-sensei<p> 


	2. Cat Got Your Arm?

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Star Trek or any of the Star Trek characters, sadly enough. The people who own them... well, own them. I also don't own Chris Thile, much to my severe dismay. That would be slavery and there's a Constitutional amendment against that so yeah. The plotline and the writing is original though, and comes from my own brain so don't steal. Plagiarists have a special circle in hell.

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><p>Captain Kirk felt his feet land solidly on the planet's surface<p>

...or maybe not so solidly, because he instantly pitched forward and began to roll down what felt like a grassy hill. He heard a giggle which could have been Chekov, and some not-so-manly shrieks that probably came from the two ensigns.

Once he stopped moving, Kirk slowly opened his eyes to see a blindingly purple sky, and some tall, spindly trees off in the distance. Standing up, he turned to the rest of the party who were in various states of disarray, and attempted to stifle a scream of laughter.

Chekov had managed to stand up, but he was still swaying slightly from the dizziness. His curly hair was full of bits of twigs, and his uniform was thoroughly grass-stained. The other two ensigns weren't in better shape. The taller one, Thile, was picking leaves out of his wild hair and Wilson was spitting dirt out of his mouth.

"Goddamnit! he said.

Thile laughed, "Maybe you wouldn't have gotten dirt in your mouth if you hadn't been screaming like a girl the whole way down."

"Shut up twig-man. Your hair looks like a bird tried to make a nest in it!"

Thile brushed at his hair again, then shrugged, "Oh well. I still look good."

"Okay men," Kirk said, then stopped. "Where'd Spock go?"

"Here, Captain." came a calm voice from behind him. Spock gave his somehow-impeccable uniform a tug and walked toward the party. "It appears that Mr. Scott was not precise enough in his beaming coordinates."

"Yeah, I guess." said Kirk, "Are you getting any more signals?"

Spock looked around at the group. "Not at the moment. Though there is a sense of activity coming from that structure."

"Structure?" Kirk wheeled around. "Oh, that thing." There was a small, gray building off in the distance. "Perhaps we should, I dunno, investigate?"

"I feel that would be unwise, Captain."

"Oh, c'mon Spock! Why?"

"As I previously mentioned, there is a sense of telepathic activity emanating from the building. If we were to approach, the inhabitants would likely notice. Based on their previous signals I received while on the ship, our party would be viewed as a imminent threat."

"So?"

"So, Captain, it would be more beneficial if I were to make contact with the civilization on my own. They would be able to use their telepathy to assure that I mean them no harm."

"You've got to be kidding me Spock, I can't let you do that! Either all of us go or none of us go." Kirk crossed his arms and was in the process of giving Spock a stubborn look when a shout came from beside them.

"Oh my god!" It was Wilson. Jumping up and down, he frantically pointed to a small tuft of grass, "I swear I just saw that grass move!"

"I was probably just the wind...?" said Thile.

"But zhere isn't any vind." Chekov pointed out, as the area gave another wiggle.

"Okay men, phasers set to stun." Kirk turned towards the suspiciously moving grass. The rest of the group hesitantly got their phasers out and formed a group behind Kirk, peering curiously out from behind him. Kirk reached out his foot and gave the grass a nudge. Something small inside is made a shuddering movement, causing Kirk to scream and jump backwards, toppling the line of men. Chekov finally managed to wrench himself out of the pile of limbs and hop towards the grass.

"Oh, look!" he said, "It's just a kitten!"

And so it was. A small black and white kitten was squirming in Chekov's firm grip.

"It's a... cat?" Kirk said, scratching his head.

"Oh, it's so cute!" Thile exclaimed. "Hey little guy, what's your name, huh?" he tickled the underside of the animal's chin, apparently delighted at the group's find.

"My name is Hedge." a loud, childish voice resounded in Kirk's head.

The rest of the group had apparently heard the voice too, for Thile gave a yelp and jumped in the air, and Chekov dropped the poor kitten.

"Where did that come from?" asked Wilson, eying the surrounding area suspiciously.

Spock walked over to the kitten and held it at eye-level. "I believe, Ensign, that it came from this."

"The cat?" Kirk laughed incredulously. "Now we know you've really lost it, Spock. Talking cats, don't exist... do they?" He trailed off, glancing back and forth from the cat to Spock's serious expression. "Oh come on, really? Talking cats?"

"It is not completely improbable, Captain."

"Yeah, I guess, but still! Talking cats? That's crazy!"

"Woah, woah, I think there's more of them!" Wilson jumped back, clinging to Thile and Chekov, pointing frantically at the surrounding grass, which was now swarming with cats of all shapes and sizes.

Kirk held up his hands, "We come in peace...?"

But it was too late. Another, deeper voice echoed through the air, "You have attacked a youngling. This is a crime unforgivable."

"Wait, we weren't attacking him! Spock was just holding him!" Kirk said, his voice squeaking with panic. He pointed his phaser towards one of the oncoming cats. There was a whole sea of them now, inching slowly closer to the party. Kirk wanted to shoot, but at the same time he didn't want to hurt the small animals. But suddenly, one of them pounced.

Kirk waved his phaser about, attempting to fire off a shot, but his aim was semi-impaired by the cat stuck to his face. He did manage to shoot a few times at random, knocking some cats out of the air mid-jump, but it did little to stop the sea of cats slowly covering the landing party. The rest of the group began firing nonstop, but one by one, they were dragged down by the swarm of felines attacking them.

"This is so not how I wanna die!" Thile shouted as he finally fell into the squirming mass below him.

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><p>When Kirk awoke, one thought rang out in his aching head: "How the hell did we get captured by a pack of <em>kittens<em>?"

The others were slowly coming to with various amounts of moaning and groaning. Spock, of course, was already awake, sitting in a corner of what appeared to be their... jail cell? Wait. How the hell did a band of cats move the five of them into a jail cell?

"If I am not mistaken, Captain, we appear to be inside the structure I observed before." said Spock, apparently judging that Kirk was conscious enough to resume his Captainly duties.

"Yeah, okay." Kirk nodded, his head still slightly fuzzy.

"But Meester Spock, how vere zey able to move us here?" asked Chekov, his voice partially obscured by a round of cursing from Thile, who was apparently feeling the pain in his head quite acutely.

"I do not know, Ensign." Spock responded.

"Hell, telepathic kittens? They probably have superhuman strength too." Wilson suggested.

Kirk opened his mouth to say something, but stopped suddenly.

"Something wrong, Captain?" Spock said, noticing Kirk's sudden distress.

"Yeah." Kirk said. "Something. We just were taken out by freakin' kittens, who were somehow dumb enough to leave us with our phasers, and now I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched."

"Heck, they probably don't even know what the phasers do. That, or they had no way to remove them from us. The lack of opposable thumbs really gets ya. But yeah, I'm getting that being-watched feeling too." said Thile, "It's like there's a pair of kitten eyes burning a hole in the back of my neck."

"Urgh, this is so damn frustrating!" Wilson banged his head against the wall, his distress written plainly on his face. He then walked over to the bars and gave them an experimental shake. All of the group, even Spock, had an expression of total surprise when the bars moved. Slowly, Kirk walked over to Wilson, took ahold of two of the bars, and easily pried them apart. There was a moment of dead silence.

"Why didn't we think of that before?" Thile shouted, and gave a strangled moan that sounded similar to a dying cow.

"Fascinating. The bars would be sufficient to restrain the average feline, but are easily broken by humans. The cats must not have taken that into account when building this cell." stated Spock, enraptured as usual by minor cultural differences.

"Sweet." Kirk clambered through the bent bars, ignoring Spock, and looked both ways down the long hallway. "It looks clear."

"Eef I had a nickel for every time I head zhat." Chekov moaned.

Kirk, blatantly ignoring Chekov now, motioned for the others to follow him, "C'mon men, phasers out. Let's go." All the men moved into the hallway and then piled up behind Kirk, unsure of where to go. "Spock, can you... sense anything?"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "There appears to be one guard around the corner."

"Alright, that's the way we go then." Kirk began to walk away when Ensign Wilson gave a yelp.

"Wait, why are we going _towards _the guard? Shouldn't we go the other way so we don't get our eyes clawed out by a royally pissed-off cat?"

"Yeah," Thile added, "That's painful. Trust me, I know."

Kirk chuckled. "They wouldn't bother putting a guard if there was nothing there. It's either the exit, or something else interesting. Guards are always a dead giveaway."

"Oh." Wilson looked slightly sheepish. "Okay."

The group walked down the hallway, and when they were right upon the guard, Kirk held up a hand with three fingers outstretched. The meaning was clear: on three we attack. It seemed a bit ridiculous for one little cat, but the people usually assumed that the captain knew what he was doing. Kirk slowly put down one finger, and then another, and the group shifted into position. When his last finger went down, they jumped around the corner, causing the orange cat to leap into the air, his hair standing on end. He gave an awful hiss, and Kirk fired off the first shot. The phaser beam arched through the air and...

… hit the wall a few millimeters away from the animal.

"Are you kidding me?" Kirk roared. Taking advantage of the party's shock at the captain's epic fail, the cat launched itself at the nearest person, who just happened to be Spock. There was a brief struggle as Spock fought to maintain his balance, and finally Chekov managed to shoot the little bugger. Kirk ran to Spock's side and moved the limp cat off of his arm. He inhaled sharply when he saw the spot of green blood on his first officer.

"Keptin, vat is eet?" Chekov craned his neck to get a better look. He, too, turned a bit pale upon seeing the mark. "Ze cat bit heem?" Kirk nodded.

Ensign Thile then spoke softly, expressing the emotions of the whole group: "Well, shit."

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>Hello anyone who happens to be reading this after all this time! I am so terribly sorry! I really should just stick to one-shots, because I lost concentration so fast when writing things longer than a few pages! But hopefully this next chapter will keep you all happy until I can write more. Despite the fact that I left it on a cliff hanger... CAT BITES DUN DUN DUN! The cat bite is very scary. Who knows what kind of viruses telepathic, possibly-superstrong cats posses! You'll just have to stick around and find out! I'll try very, very, very hard to update soon, but you know how that goes. I'm such a dirty, rotten liar! Oh, but you know what makes updates come sooner? Reviews, those lovely cookies of goodness! When people show interest, I'm more apt to write! I try to make each chapter two sections about, so this story may span a pretty freakin long time unless I write longer chapters... which I maybe shall do! But anyways, I hope you like this crack-filled chapter (I was listening to "Sexy and I Know It" and "Call Me Maybe" while I wrote it, so there's that) and I hope to see you next time around!

~ Review-cookies, adorbs kittens, and Star Trek love all around,  
>Flame`Alchemist-sensei<p> 


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